The media is in bed with the Republican Party.

[kentuck]

And they have been for many long years. Does anyone really think we would have invaded Iraq if the media had done their job? They prop up the lies of the right-wingers in this country. Granted, there are some liberal voices, more than ever before, speaking out. But the vast majority of the mainstream media is in bed with the Republicans and corporatists.

Otherwise, we would hear the Republicans attempt to explain what their "health care" plan is when the media asked them for it. And they would point out that they have no plan. They would point out that their plans to cut taxes has been tried before and is the main reason we are in huge deficits and debt in this country.

On so many issues, they let the Republicans slide without explanation. They assume that the Republicans are on the right side of every issue and the Democrats are looked at very skeptically.

Without the media propping them up, they would collapse hate for the government and their lack of any specific plans to help the American people. They are a Party of "No". If the media would only pressure the Republicans in the same manner they pressure Democrats on the issues, they could not survive in their present form. They would have to change or they would die. If the media would only do its job.

[Beer on a stick]

1. Sure they are. That's why President McCain and the Republican controlled congress......

Oh......

Wait a minute.....

[virgogal]

2. Good one! :-)

[timeforpeace]

23. No shit! Except for being precisely the opposite of the truth, the OP is spot on! LOL!

[CJCRANE]

5. The MSM never asked Palin about the AIP even once

yet they covered Reverend Wright for weeks if not months.

Your assumption doesn't match reality.

[Beer on a stick]

15. Sure it does. Just because they did do what you want doesn't make them....

the lackeys of one side or the other.

[mitchum]

17. I give you about 15 or so more days (you're no seventhson)

[Beer on a stick]

19. Can I have a Fresca instead? All that grapefruity, bubbly goodness. Mmmm.... Fresca!

[WCGreen]

31. They brought it up because the RW kept bringing it up...

Our side didn't want to sully themselves by bringing up the AIP.

That's the way we roll

Over and take it all the time...

[zeos3]

7. Right...

Everyone knows the media is "liberal." Everypoint the OP made was wrong.

:eyes:

[Beer on a stick]

16. That damn super far lefty General Electric!

[zeos3]

20. Yes...and how 'bout those other super far lefties...

the republicans!


:freak:

[Cha]

27. Yes, the corporatemedia is in bed with the republicans..

Too bad for them the republicans were so bad and there was a Perfect Storm for Obama to come along and win the election.

They're pulling out all the stops to make sure the Dems lose in 2010 just like they did in 2002.

And, I'm sure they'll have their marching orders to get PO removed in 2012.

[Festivito]

36. Oh, but it's worse than that.

Added my response further down. Link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6667392#6671155

[blm]

39. That's only because corpmedia COULDN'T cover for Bush/GOP much after Katrina the way they did

before.

If media COULD HAVE spun Katrina, Schiavo and Social Security for Bush and the GOP they would have.

[Vincardog]

3. The Corporate Controlled Media, The Publican party and the DLC are all OWNED by the same rich cabal

[scubadude]

4. Really, No, Really....... Doh!

The Repubes have been pushing the notion of "liberal media" for decades. It is part of the plan to control the conversation. If you can convince the people that the views professed by a big business controlled media is left wing, that's half the battle. It's a no brainer....

Scuba

[branders seine]

6. gee, ya think?

The reality is that the republicans, the democrats and the media are all in the same bed, being manipulated by the same unelected powers to advance the agenda of the oligarchy while prolonging the facade of democracy. The Democrats are better than the Republicans though, for those of you playing along at home.

[CJCRANE]

8. No, they're not. Bush was at 70% disapproval

but the MSM never reflected that.

And the MSM never covered leftwing conspiracy theories the way they give airtime to the RW nutters. I'd be happy if the 9/11 truthers had a 10th of the coverage of the teabaggers and birthers.

[branders seine]

9. I didn't say they were balanced.

I agreed with the OP that ("gee, ya think?")

:shrug:

[CJCRANE]

12. Fair enough, I realized that after I posted! nt

[timeforpeace]

24. How do you know that if the media never reported it? They hated Bush. And they love Obama, still.

[CJCRANE]

33. I didn't say they *never* reported it. But I get more in-depth information from blogs than the MSM.

And I don't think the MSM hated Bush, considering that he had 50% of Americans STRONGLY disapproved of him I think the MSM were pretty soft on him.

[Dr Fate]

10. Call me back when Top DEMS are saying all that you just said, on TV, to their faces.

"It's the media's fault" cannot be our fall back excuse if our leaders refuse to address it.

Top DEMS with media access cant be whistling past the grave yard on media bias, but then have bloggers cry "media bias" after the fact for every time they fail.

It's getting old.

[CakeGrrl]

11. This has been evident since Whitewater/Monica days. n/t

[KansDem]

14. One could go all the way back to 1934 California...

From Kirkus Reviews
The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair's Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics (Paperback)
by Greg Mitchell (Author)

A colorful account of California's 1934 gubernatorial race, a forerunner of today's high-decibel, high-tech electioneering. Upton Sinclair, author of the meat-packing expos‚ The Jungle and a prominent Socialist who became a Democrat only a year before the general election, electrified millions with his EPIC (End Poverty in California) movement--and at the same time alarmed, in Mitchell's words, ``an array of powerful enemies almost unparalleled in American politics,'' including William Randolph Hearst, Herbert Hoover, and film-mogul L.B. Mayer. Mitchell (Truth...and Consequences, 1981) follows the nine-week campaign almost day by day, from the morning after Sinclair's astonishing primary victory to his November defeat at the hands of the lackluster, reactionary GOP incumbent, Frank Merriam. In between, California became a laboratory for the modern negative mass-media campaign, as Sinclair's enemies wedded some tried-and-true tactics (slush funds, dirty tricks, voter intimidation, biased reporting by nearly all of the state's 700 newspapers) to some disturbingly effective new ones: a campaign consultant to manage a gubernatorial contest, polling, a direct-mail operation, even newsreels (precursors of TV commercials) that attacked Sinclair. For a history as epic as the campaign that inspired it, Mitchell has found additional dash and drama in a wealth of primary source materials, contemporary newspaper accounts, and interviews, unfolding the campaign through the eyes of dozens of politicians, entertainers, and other public figures, including FDR, Charlie Chaplin, Melvin Belli, Pat Brown, James Cagney, and H.L. Mencken. An entertaining chronicle of the consummation of the unholy alliance of Madison Avenue, Hollywood, and politics. (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs.) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Amazon

I remember hearing a description of the newsreels' "Man on the Street" interviews: Kindly grandmothers were voicing their support for Merriam, while wild-eyed "anarchists" were supporting Sinclair...

It hasn't changed much.

[zeos3]

13. Here's more on the same...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8678971

[Selatius]

18. The media most certainly is not in bed with the Republican Party. The reality is quite different.

In truth, the news media is in bed with somebody, but that isn't the Republicans.

The news media is really in bed fucking with corporatists. The Republicans are simply like the other whore he loves to have sex with.

You get me Lincoln Chafee front and center, and I can guarantee you sooner or later some demagogue shill in the news media is going to start attacking him for being a "disloyal" Republican and being too much of a tree-hugger and is against deregulation.

[zeos3]

21. I would consider R's and corporatists the same thing.

How about instead of saying they're in bed with one or the other, let's just call it a menage a troi.

Here's a vid of Scahill and Greenwald on the same topic.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x380626

[BBG]

22. and many a centrist with warm towels...

Even amongst Democrats there is that faction of centrists who are part and parcel of what is wrong with this country today.

[Cha]

30. Of course, it is the same..they're all

vipers in the same nest.

[timeforpeace]

25. Well said. Blaming the media for current failures is so weak and lets the incompetents off the hook.

[Selatius]

28. Nevermind. Misinterpreted. nt

[Cha]

29. And, not recognizing the corporatemedia's manipulation

and manufacturing of the "news" is hiding your head in the sand.

[Swamp Rat]

26. Literally

[madamesilverspurs]

32. Yeah, keep looking for that 'lefty bias.'

Saturday we had a town hall meeting with one of our senators. Our newspaper didn't deem it important enough to cover, probably because they were so busy covering the same-day glennbecker 9-12 gathering.

Beyond useless.

[KharmaTrain]

34. It's Corporate More Than Right Wing...

The dirty secret of our beloved media...newspapers, teevee, radidio and even blogs is that they like to make money. Many begin small but over time their desire to turn profits supercedes all else. Over time they detach from the consumers and cater more and more to other corporates and those who have money. Since the rushpublicans and right wing have long stood for greed and profit, they've naturally attracted those who see the world in monitary rather than altruistic terms.

I used to joke that if people thought the media was liberal, they never met most of the owners that I worked with. Many loved money and were rushpublicans. Not bible thumpers, not neo-cons but hard-nosed cut my taxes fiscal "conservatives". Those were also the same people who ran the national party...over the years pandering to the fringes but in control of who had the real power. That changed in the 90's...the corporates were distracted by "deregulation" and making lots of money while the fringes moved to take over the party.

While some of these companies use our public airwaves, the media has never had an obligation to serve anyone but themselves. To make money, to earn credibility they use the veneer of being "journalists" and not being biased, but that ends where the balance sheet begins. If there's a market to make money off of rushpublicans, the media will shimmy on over just as much as if they see the same buck to be made on our side. Since the GOOP has always had the fat cats the scales have always been tilted away from the consumer. It isn't until the market crashes of the past year when the easy money dried up that the media is starting to look around and see how detached they've become from the consumers (us) who were their real customers...but in many cases it's too late.

Today's corporate media is loaded with skittish children...trying to please and playing games to get you to pay attention. They thrive on confrontation and see politics like a sport...winners and losers and inside the beltway games. It's always been up to us, the consumer, to see through these games and have turned to alternative media for information...not bloodsports.

Cheers...

[Festivito]

35. Worse, they're in bed with monied interests who own Republicans.

After taking our wealth through a borrowing Ponzi scheme, the bill came due, comes due, will continue to come due.

They, yeah, they don't care if McCain, whom they never really liked or trusted, gets blamed or if a black man gets blamed -- a woman being blamed would have been okay as well. (That's why the media focused on Obama and Hilary in primaries despite others beating them.)

And, the reason the economy fell is not that they promoted borrowing at high levels in banks creating an excess of million-dollar McMansions that somehow ends with them having lots of money and lands, no of course not, it was the 2% of the poor not paying their tiny mortgages that brought the whole of America down bringing riches to the top half of a percent of a percent of the top already rich.

Believe what you wish. State what you want to state. We're screwed. Just, who are you?

EDIT: Meant this as response to #1. Oh well.

[bdamomma]

37. what else is new? the media have been jerks for a long time.

[L. Coyote]

38. Wrong. Conservatives OWN the media. The "media" is a slave to them.

You get in bed with your partner. The "media" just does the bidding of their masters, and hope they can keep their job security intact, send their kids to college, etc. without pissing off the boss and losing their health insurance benefits!

The "media" is largely a lot of people working for the Conservatives who own the Republican Party.